The Arizona sentinel., 1887-07-02
GENESIS OF THE HORSE.
An English Scientists Comments on tn
 Prehistoric Equine Species.

An English Scientists Comments on the Prehistoric Equine Species.
 An English naturalist, writing upon
 the horse of Great Britain, traces the
 ancestry of the present species back
 beyond the historic age, and as 10 spe. cies now extinct, refers to species hay ing more than one hoof to each limb. The same is true of America. Fossil diminutive horses have been found with four hoofs or toes, like. those of cattle. In relation to these prehistoric horses in Great Britain, our authority says:
 Ear back before the age of man there lived upon the earth species of the horse family, long ago extinct. This horse was little larger than a sheep, and some say not larger than terrier dog These little horses as far as we know from the fossil remains, were the beginning of the horse tribe. They had every outline of horses, and the anatomy also, with the exception that the feet were the most peculiar. Instead of having one hoof on each leg, as our modern horse, this dimin- utive pony was the possessor of four, making sixteen hoofs in all. As the horse developed, these hoofs, or speaking more correctly, these toes, all disappeared, leaving our modern horse to walk upon the end of one toe.
 '1n order to clearly understand the manner of the gradual disappearance of these toes a little anatomy may be tolerated. Starting with the hand of man as a standard, the thumb. which is really finger. the index is called the second, the next third, fourth and fifth. It has been observed that when this order is in any way interfered with, the first to disappear is the thumb or the first finger This is noticed in dogs. The dew claw is the first finger or thumb. So it was with the little horses. No remains can be found pos sessing the first finger. The earliest had the second, third. fourth and fifth toes present, all of which reached the ground and were usable. These toes all disappeared until none was left except the third, on which the horse of the present day walks. The one just preceding our modern horse had three toes, the second, third and fourth, but the outside ones did not reach the ground and accordingly were not usable. They were up a little distance on the leg, like the hoofS of deer, and only remain on our modern horse in whatis known as splint bones.
 1t occasionally happens that horses. as well as other animals. will breed hack, and monstrosity, as it appears to us, will be the result In England some time agn, horse was born which had two hoofs on each foot, and was carried about the country as a curiosity. It was a reference, or index of what sort of feet the species once had. Just why they were at first in possession of such feet is matter of conjecture. It may have been because the ground was soft and marshy, and the extra feet gave more surface for resistance, and as the earth grew irmer no necessity existed for so many toes, so that by disuse they began to dissap- pear. With the notifications of the the feet the horse increased in weight and strength, getting ready to help | man bear his burdens and progress in | the line of civilization As itincreas- ed in size, through mans interference and culture, it also increased in men, tai capacity, until one of the most in- telligent, docile. useful creatures ever given by the Supreme Being to man is the animal almost human-th horse" --Farm, FItEd aud StoekRpG,A